Pink Rose
by Stella Dellasera
Summary: Another fantasy vignette. An AU scene, in which Martin turns a different direction when coming home after the events of S4E7 "Do Not Disturb." Again, please be aware that this is rated M.


Pink Rose

It was a long drive from Exeter back to Portwenn. Evening was falling as Martin sped along the motorway in the silver Lexus.

He felt exhilarated, mentally reliving the scene in the hotel kitchen. There had been blood everywhere, on his face, his neck, his pristine white shirt, blood on the dish towels, blood on the bloody pineapple. It was bloody chaos, but he had mastered the chaos, saved the patient, and saved the day.

The elusive dream of regaining his old life had year by year receded before him, but it didn't matter now. He knew he would be fit to return to London, to lord it over the operating theatre once again, where the patient would be sedated, the field sterile, the assisting team ready to jump to his command. There would be no cringing, no nausea, he would be perfectly in control. His heart beat faster at the thought. Soon, tomorrow even, he would stretch out his arm and grasp the future he desired.

As the sky darkened, the thought of London and his old life made his mind drift to Edith. He pictured her in the hotel room, opening her blouse, showing off to him her still fit body, her lacy lingerie. Yes, as she reminded him, he had seen her naked before. He had felt such passion for her once, a deeply erotic and romantic passion, and she had broken his heart. Broken his heart. It was such a rubbish cliché, but it was true. He had felt sick in his heart for months, years, after she left. His successful career had been his only consolation.

Now he admitted to himself he had felt a physical stirring seeing her again, offering herself to him in her crisp, confident way, but the stirring was superficial only. He knew for certain he felt nothing deeper for her any longer.

He knew what she would say if he saw her again, he could just hear her voice: _you've conquered your phobia of blood Ellingham, but you now have a fear of intimacy._ His mind wandered to the last time he had seen his mother, the time she mocked him for not being like his father and blamed him for Dad losing interest in her, no longer finding her desirable when she was a pregnant woman and then a mother.

Then he banished that memory. He did not want to explore why the thought of Edith brought the unwanted image of Mum to mind.

Now he slowed to turn off the motorway and move onto the village roads. In the distance he could see the little boats bobbing in the harbour and a green light on a dock glittering across the water. A light drizzle began, and instead of turning off toward the surgery on Manor Road, he slowed still further. He turned onto the narrow side street, and drove past Mr. Routledge's house, the place where Louisa was staying.

For a moment it seemed completely dark, like she had turned in early for the night, but he detected a faint glow behind the curtains. Almost without thinking he parked the Lexus and walked over to her door. He noted that she had covered the house's original unappealing moniker "Weever Cottage" with a hand-lettered sign that read "Pink Rose Cottage." He knocked.

"Who is it?" She sounded tired. He hesitated a moment, then replied. "It's, er, Martin. I thought this might be a good time to discuss some practicalities, as I mentioned earlier."

He thought he heard her groan. He wondered at the wisdom of dropping in unannounced at this hour, but it was too late to turn back now.

"Come on in, it's not locked," she said finally. He pushed the door open, intending to point out the foolishness of not locking her door at night, even in a tiny, quaint village. He walked in and found her half reclining on a chaise lounge. Thank God she had finally aired out the foul smell that pervaded the place when Mr. Routledge resided here.

She was still in the deep purple dress he had seen her in that morning, her dark hair was loose on her shoulders and a pair of impractical women's shoes, also purple, lay kicked off on the floor. Soft music was playing. The book she had been reading lay abandoned. Her feet were soaking in an enamelled basin of warm water. The lights were off and she had arranged a dozen lit candles on the coffee table. Her face looked tired and swollen, he could never help himself from noting details like that, but in the golden candlelight she had never looked more beautiful. He completely forgot about lecturing her about the door lock.

"So yes, practicalities. I suppose we should talk," she said, attempting to move her heavily pregnant body upright.

"No, you stay where you're comfortable," he said, clearing his throat sharply. "Er… how was the baby shower?"

She settled back against the cushions. The light flickered on her face. He felt as if his heart would break.

"It was kind of Bert and everyone, they mean well, but honestly I'm exhausted. I'm on my feet all day at work, it's hard to stand around at a party on a Saturday making small talk with people when they're congratulating you and sort of pitying you too. You know, for… well, uh, being unmarried and all… and you being so eager to leave here. My feet are killing me, so I thought I'd try to wind down before bed. Not that I sleep so well now anyway."

Martin didn't know how to respond to her comment about people pitying her, so he concentrated on a subject he felt more confident with.

"Mm, the body retains more fluid during pregnancy and the enlarged uterus puts pressure on the veins, which can impair the blood flow, further aggravating any swelling. However, your feet and ankles appear to be normal for your stage of pregnancy. You should make sure you take light exercise and avoid standing for long periods during the remaining weeks. Light massage can help to decrease stress hormones as well as foot and leg pain, and possibly aid in sleep."

He could see a soap dish and a small towel, both still unused, on the floor beside the basin. On an impulse, he knelt on the carpet, pulled back his sleeves, picked up the soap and plunged it in the water. He drew out a creamy lather, lifted her left foot, and began to gently rub it in.

"Martin, what are you… _oh!_" She gave a little gasp of surprise.

He didn't look up to meet her eyes, but continued in earnest, soaping one foot, then the other, sliding his fingers between her toes, around the heels, stroking the arches. The soap was scented with almonds, or was it cherries? No, definitely sweet almonds. He was sensitive to smells, but this was such a pure scent he found it delicious. He rinsed her feet in the basin, then dried first one, then the other with the soft towel, carefully rubbing along the soles. In the dim light he could see her neatly manicured toenails painted rose pink.

Louisa watched him, in shock at first, then a feeling of tenderness she had not experienced in months came over her. How stunned everyone at the baby shower would be if they could see him like this, she thought, but this was the Martin she knew before their non-wedding, and so much else, came between them. This was the secret side of the man who pushed away the world with his gruffness and ill manners, who only grudgingly, with such difficulty, revealed his passionate, gentle side to her just eight months ago, the man who had fathered the child that now grew inside her.

She looked at his pale skin, pale hair, glistening in the flickering light, at his too large ears and too large mouth, at his awkward body, still clad in the suit and tie that were his armour against the world. It had been so long since she had seen him without his suit. He bent stiffly over her feet, his enormous fingers moving so gently on her skin. She was suddenly overcome with a flood of desire such as she hadn't felt since her body was transformed by pregnancy. Without thinking, her hands moved up and down her body and found their way under her dress and she was rubbing in time with his touch on her feet.

Martin didn't dare look up, he was intent on her feet, so delicate like seashells, but soft, so soft. The music had long since stopped and he heard her breathing faster and faster. He heard the pounding of the sea not far away, then he thought it must be his pulse pounding in his ears.

Her rose pink toenails in the candlelight made him think of the time they had taken a bath together by candlelight, at her old cottage, and her nipples were that colour, like rose petals, and they were in love then, so in love, and now he didn't think any more as he kissed the arch of her foot, and kissed it again and again, and he heard her cry out in pleasure, as he heard her cry out that night eight months before, and then she seemed to collapse back onto the chaise lounge.

He felt her eyes on him but he still couldn't look up from her foot in his hands. He still heard the rhythmic sea right in his ears, and he felt like he hadn't drawn breath in many moments.

Louisa reached out her hand to him but her body felt so heavy she couldn't quite move forward enough to touch him. "Oh Martin," she murmured, but she didn't know what to say, she felt strangely tongue-tied.

A wave of emotion struck him, carrying with it the detritus of his past, a current bearing him back ceaselessly into random images and sensations: the buildings of London, the moving cars and masses of people, the heat and the smell of them; a neighbour boy who had once bloodied his nose, then Mum in their old kitchen at home, slapping his bloody hand away as he reached to her for comfort; the musty, cobwebby air in the old cupboard beneath the stairs; a series of nannies he had half-bonded with only to see each one dismissed for a minor infraction; a yellow butterfly dying in a heap of broken glass; Aunt Joan and tearful goodbyes at the Bodmin train station; midnight wet sheets and sniggering comments at boarding school; Dad in his prime, lording it over an operating theatre, his pale blue-grey eyes glaring out over a surgical mask; now himself fully grown, masked and gowned, in control of his own sterile operating theatre; his old surgical assisting team, also masked and gowned, and anonymous; a series of anonymous sedated patients; a woman facing surgery, with her frightened family clinging to her; a bloody hotel kitchen, blood on the pineapple, blood on the dish towels, blood on his shirt, his neck, his face; Edith presenting him with a bag of blood in his own kitchen; and Mum in his kitchen, coolly disdaining his very existence.

Like a slap in the face, Martin suddenly wondered why he was fighting so hard to regain his old life. He looked up to meet Louisa's hazel green eyes and, for once in his life, his tongue loosened and the words came pouring out.

"I was wrong. About you, about leaving, about everything," he said. "I'm an idiot, I don't know why it took me so long to realize it. I think I've known how I felt since the first time I met you. From the first time I saw you. And I know I'm hard to talk to, sometimes, I'm aware of that. And I do hate Portwenn. I hate the people, their pinched faces, and their ridiculous accents, and their unerring knack of catching any virus that comes within a five-mile radius, they spread contagious like a bush fire. But it's where I want to be… because you're here… because of you…cause if I'm with you nothing else matters."

"What I'm trying to say is… I love you. Give me one last chance. Please!"

Louisa felt her eyes burn with tears. "I've waited so long to hear you say nice things. And I'd given up. I'd completely given up. And then I thought you were saying them to someone else, to that… woman." She couldn't bring herself to say Edith's name.

"She doesn't matter," he declared. "London, surgery, my old life, none of it matters to me. I'm not going to be like my father. And this one," he placed his hand gently on her belly, "is not going to be like me. And I do love you."

She reached out far enough this time to stroke his hair, his face, and slowly slide her hand down his neck, his chest, down the length of his body that she missed so much, and up to stroke his hair once more.

"Say it again," she whispered.

"I will always," he leaned forward and kissed her, "love you… and our child."

_The end. _


End file.
